An Earth-friendly way to easily upgrade and fix your own computer

This update lays out the roadmap for the EOMA68 project and what the
future holds for modular, eco-conscious, libre computing.

As I’ve previously mentioned, the EOMA68 project has five-year history
even before this crowdfunding campaign. It’s almost overwhelming for
me to describe to people the multi-faceted aims of this
project. That there are (at the time of writing) over 1,700 pledges
is amazing: I’m so proud to be backed by so many people who believe in
this project.

Remember, the goal is not just to sell a few thousand gadgets and go
home with the profits. We aim to reach mass-volume with an
eco-conscious strategy that at the same time saves users money in the
long-term, puts people back in control of their hardware, reduces
spying opportunities for governments and corporations, and reduces
people’s stress levels due to incompatibility, viruses, irreparable
accidental damage, and the like.

Central to this long-term strategy is building up a healthy ecosystem
of products beyond those offered in this campaign. Already, there are
other EOMA68 housings and computer cards in the concept phase or
actually under development. Here’s a summary of the current
landscape, some paths already followed, and the roadmap ahead.

Computer Cards

There have been several of these attempted - literally dozens of
SoCs have been evaluated: we showed a
small glimpse into this world with the processor
update.

The Allwinner A10 and its drop-in replacement upgrade, the
A20, is the CPU we’re running with. Its news page is
here.

The Freescale iMX6
computer card got a long
way before it was
realised that the power consumption of an older quad-core Cortex A9
would simply be too high.

The Texas Instruments AM339x
series - used in the original Beaglebone - would be a perfect
candidate as there are even full PCB CAD files available which can be
adapted… except that this SoC is now so old that it’s no longer
attractive.

I paid out $4,000 USD of my own money on an Allwinner
A33 Computer Card only
to find late in the day (due to incomplete datasheets) that the LCD
output was hard-restricted to 1280x800 where the EOMA68 Standard “Type
II” 5 mm specification requires a minimum of 1366x768.

Various Ingenic SoCs were evaluated: it took a long time to get
Ingenic to answer that the reason why they state that their SoCs are
restricted to 1280x720 is not down to the LCD interface (which can
easily handle 1920x1080 resolutions), it’s down to the internal memory
bandwidth alloted to the hardware-accelerated VPU. The VPU can only
handle 1280720 @ 30fps. So this was why the jz4775 went ahead, only to find that
the OS support is at a bare minimum and quickly eroding for MIPS32.
All SoCs using PowerVR are automatically blacklisted, so the jz4780
will never be considered until ImgTec provide full source under libre
licenses.

The ICubeCorp IC1t which
is a quad-core 400 MHz “Unified Processor” design was also attempted:
samples are actually functional. However as they use open64 not gcc,
chances are extremely remote that the IC1T will ever have GNU/Linux
distro support.

The FPGA Card
concept is also under consideration: now that the Zynq 7020 is
commonly available with full PCB reference designs, if those
reference designs could be converted to useable formats it would be
easy to do without overwhelming financial investment required.

Dozens of Intel processors have been evaluated. All of them
have Intel spyware back-door co-processors. We have no intention of
endorsing that kind of behaviour.

This is a partial list - the amount of personal funds spent on these
over the past five years is somewhere around $16,000 - that’s
excluding the $20,000 spent on the EOMA68-A20. The SoCs currently
being evaluated are the Allwinner R40 (due out very soon) and the same
Exynos Octa-Core 28 nm SoC used in the NanoPi3. This is going to take
time and resources to evaluate. They’re not going to be available
immediately. We need your backing for this project and the
current Computer Card before we can be in an established financial
position to properly evaluate and bring you these faster Computer
Cards.

Housings

In parallel with the Computer Card evaluation, over the years people
have been suggesting projects which could be converted to modular
designs: these are maintained on the community
ideas page. The best ones
- or those that are actually being implemented - have their own page.
Here are a few:

The 7”
tablet has
a long history behind it, where we now feel that the better option
would be to create a 9” 4:3 aspect ratio (1024x768) tablet with
associate keyboard-dock similar to the Always Innovating “Touchbook.”
Space is extremely tight in the 7in form-factor, and there are
significant difficulties finding matching components. It’ll be
doable… but from experience we know that it will take at least a
year’s worth of full-time development effort, the costs of which would
of course have to be covered by actual market demand.

The Laptop page
was an early “dumping ground” and research exploration page for
component sourcing. ThinkPenguin helped
narrow this down to a very specific and popular segment, the 15.6”
Laptop market,
with full-sized keyboard including numberpad being a known attractive
feature for businesses, as well as the larger screen size making for
easier viewing in office environments.

The Hand-held Games
Console is
being run by an independent team that loves the fact EOMA68 allows
them to not have to deal with DDR3 RAM and other issues, that they
can consider doing a 2-layer or 4-layer PCB at a fraction of the cost,
and that they can upgrade in the future. They’ve stuck with us for
many years and I have been helping them quietly in the background on
PCB design and component sourcing.

The Road Ahead

There are so many possibilities here - Digital Cameras, Camcorders,
Hand-held video and DVD players, GPS Sat-Nav players, In-car Stereos
(where you’d plug the Computer Card in, instead of a USB or Memory
Card), etc. We’ve chosen to focus on the Micro-Desktop, the A20, the
Pass-through Card and the 15” Laptop for this crowdfunding campaign,
because it’s what can be managed. We invite you to help out,
especially if you have a background in electronics. We need you - the
makers: it’s why we created the Breakout Board, so that you can
consider getting involved and link up to parts from Adafruit, just as
I did with the prototyping of the LCD+CTP for the Laptop’s
touchpanel.
Albert then helped out and did
AZERTY
actually during this campaign!

What we are quite likely to do next, however, (unless someone comes
forward and offers to sponsor a project, just like ThinkPenguin did)
is adapt the Laptop’s PCBs to create an LCD monitor that can’t be
used to spy on you.
It will basically be the Laptop’s “PCB1” (main PCB) and a Pass-through
Card. It’ll be upgradeable to an all-in-one Computer simply by
popping out the Passthrough Card and popping in an EOMA68 Computer
Card. The other project will be an all-in-one Keyboard + Trackpad
(similar to the Logitech K400r except without the bluetooth). This
(again, surprise!) will be based on the Laptop PCB2, which is the
STM32F072 PCB. A different PCB1 will be needed (similar to the
Micro Desktop… in fact we might be able to use the Micro Desktop
PCB) and in a relatively short amount of time we will have a
Keyboard+Trackpad (again with a Pass-through Card) that you can use as
a standard USB Keyboard+Trackpad… but that can be converted to an
all-in-one Keyboard Computer simply by popping out the Passthrough
Card and putting in an EOMA68 Computer! It’s so simple and amazing
when you envisage these things, it’s just incredibly hard to
understand why this hasn’t been done before.

So yes: there is a roadmap. We have a lot to do. Way too much, in
fact, so we need your help. So if you believe in what we’re doing,
back the project, join the mailing
list, and get
in touch. Let’s help each other out, take back control of our
hardware, and help others to do the same.

Micro Desktop Housing for Computer Card

This is a Micro Desktop base unit and power supply unit with a beautiful laser-cut stack of 3mm plywood panels that creates an aesthetically attractive tiny base unit for your Computer Cards. Excludes Computer Card, keyboard, mouse and VGA monitor.

Orders placed now ship Mar 31, 2019.

Free US Shipping / $12 Worldwide

$450

PIY Laptop Housing Kit for Computer Card

This Print-It-Yourself (PIY) kit includes all the parts, cabling and
boards (main, power, and controller, assembled and tested), and
battery, charger, keyboard, LCD, and CTP-LCD for trackpad that are
needed to build a complete Libre Laptop once you 3D print the
enclosure from the freely available GPLv3+ licensed plans. Excludes
Computer Card.

Orders placed now ship Apr 30, 2019.

Free US Shipping / $25 Worldwide

$500

PFY Laptop Housing Kit for Computer Card

This Printed-For-You (PFY) kit has everything needed to create a full
EOMA68 Laptop, including a 3D printed set of casework parts,
bamboo plywood panels, tested and assembled PCBs, cables, battery,
charger, keyboard, LCD, and CTP-LCD for trackpad. Available in a
variety of colors and materials. Excludes Computer Card.

Orders placed now ship May 31, 2019.

Free US Shipping / $25 Worldwide

Material / Color

$1,200

Completely Assembled Laptop + Computer Card

A meticulously hand-assembled and fully-tested laptop. Includes your choice of EOMA68-A20 Computer Card and 3D-printed casework.

For those people who would like the opportunity to meet the designers
and have them personally go over the project's development, history,
future direction and much more, a week's time can be made available to
meet with you personally, to do a hands-on workshop to help you (and
any number of additional attendees) through the process of putting
together your own fully-functioning laptop and even take you through
the process of building and installing the software. Also included
will be one Laptop with a Computer Card which will be assembled
on-site. You must provide travel, accommodation, tools and a suitable
workshop and presentation space. Contact us directly for details.

Orders placed now ship May 31, 2019.

Free Worldwide Shipping

Material / Color

$20

PCMCIA/EOMA68 Breakout Board

One PCMCIA/EOMA68 Breakout Board with one surface mount PCMCIA header, and tracks to some convenient 2.54-mm-spaced through-holes. Added by popular demand, for access, tinkering, development work, testing, etc.

Orders placed now ship Mar 31, 2019.

Free US Shipping / $10 Worldwide

$35

Pass-through Card

A simple card that takes in HDMI and USB and passes them on. Turns a Laptop Housing into a portable, battery-powered dock for your smartphone, USB-HDMI dongle computer, and tablet, or a second screen, keyboard, and mouse for your existing laptop or desktop PC.

Orders placed now ship Mar 31, 2019.

Free US Shipping / $10 Worldwide

$15

USB + HDMI Cable Set for Standalone Operation

Includes a Micro HDMI Type D cable and 3-way USB-OTG Host-Charger cable tested and known to work with EOMA68 Computer Cards. These are the cables you need to run a Computer Card as a standalone device without the need for a housing. Also useful with the Micro Desktop or Laptop Housing to add a second screen and extra USB port.